


The Break-out Club

by feldman, Thassalia



Series: John Hughes AU [2]
Category: Farscape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:30:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feldman/pseuds/feldman, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thassalia/pseuds/Thassalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set fourteen years after "The Peacekeeper Wars": second story in the John Hughes AU written with Thassalia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Break-out Club

Chiana feels a strange deja-vu as she takes in the sight of the boy.

If she hadn't seen his father at a similar age, she'd have taken one look at the whip thin body and said he looked like his mother and no one else. But she can see the hollows where his father's heritage will fill in, see the traces of Crichton in the shape of his bottom lip, his square hands, and his wariness.

"Frell, you've grown." She throws her hood back and blinks, watching recognition soften his stance and bring a smile to his face.

"Hasn't been that long." He blushes as he holsters the pistol, and when he pulls her into a hug, she realizes he's now taller than she is. And that it has been that long.

"Where's the rest? Did I come in the middle of dinner?"

"Mom and Dad are planetside for another solar day or so."

"D'Argo, I'm sorry to interrupt."

"Heya Pilot!"

"Chiana, Moya and I welcome you aboard."

"Good to be back."

D'Argo squints. "Is there a problem Pilot?"

Pilot responds by unblocking the girl's comm channel.

"Deeeee! Want Goober!"

D'Argo sighs and Chiana turns to him, horrified. "What the frell's that?"

"Mysister. Come on, I'll introduce you guys."

So this is what they'd been up to since she left.

Chiana cocks her head to look at the little girl, trying to fit Aeryn's daughter--frell, *Crichton's* daughter--into the context of her knowledge of the hybridized family, figuring out how a new person fits into this group of people she loves.

The girl is all smiles and disaster, ragged curls and plump, pale cheeks, dexterous little fingers winding through the bars of her playpen.

Pretty and sticky, she clearly hasn't seen the inside of a bathtub for the past few days.

D'Argo shrugs in that cross species adolescent gesture for, 'Yeah, so what?'

"She's just gonna get dirty again. The deal was to watch her, not keep her clean."

She stifles a snort. He is so very much his father's kid.

The girl's eyes focus on Chiana, lighting up as Chi squats down and sticks her fingers through the caging. When they'd rounded the bend, the cries for Goober had been klaxon bright, shriller than shrill. Now, the narl is calmer, pink and fascinated. She's missing one shoe, her socked foot so tiny that it's hard to imagine she'll grow into anything as long and rangy as her brother. She wraps her hand around Chiana's fingers, and smiles wide and toothy.

"Dude, she bites."

D'Argo sounds like he knows this first hand.

"Hey," she says to the girl. "I'm your Auntie Chi."

"Chi," the name comes complete with enthusiastic spit.

"New teeth," her brother says, offhand. "She's got lots of use for 'em."

The baby is a surprise. Especially after... She doesn't like to think about it, the blood, Aeryn chalk white and so weak she couldn't move... Chiana can't believe they tried again.

D'Argo is perceptive, probably more so than he's quite comfortable with. "Dad calls her a surprise. A gift."

She speaks without thinking. "You were too."

"Yeah," his voice is bone dry. "That's what they tell me."

With a shrug D'Argo hits the door lock. "Come on, Punk. Hungry?"

The girl sidles behind his leg, suddenly shy now that nothing separates her from Chiana.

She leans down but the girl ducks behind her brother's knee. "I'm not gonna hurt you, Punk."

D'Argo affects a cool posture, but his hand on the girl's head is gentle. "Maybe Auntie Chi will get your Goober for you."

Sticky fingers clutch at the boy's dark work pants. "Chi?"

"I dunno. Ask her."

She shakes her head, tiny picket teeth biting her lip. There's a shiny smear on her cheek and random fuzz bits in her tangled curls. Squiggles of color decorate her bare arms.

"What's with the marks?"

"She likes to color."

"On herself?"

"Anywhere she can reach."

"Goober?"

D'Argo leans down, brushing a frizzy dusky curl away from her eye. "Go on, ask her."

Chi watches the little one screw up her courage, and whispers to D'Argo, "What's a goober?"

He glances at the plastic drannit on the floor across the corridor. The fur patches are worn off and one of the eyes is missing. The jaw parts are thin and pliable, and Chiana works them as if it's talking. "Heya Punk."

The squeal is deafening, and the fingers clutching at D'Argo's pants would have torn the fabric if they weren't so creepy small. D'Argo may have grown, but Chiana doesn't remember him ever being so little when he was walking and talking.

Punk moves more of her body out from behind her brother's leg. "Goober sings! Goober sings and goes poop!"

D'Argo sighs, soul-weary and embarrassed.

"I'll bet he does." Chiana squeezes the drannit, feeling the way air leaks out of strategic holes in the toy. Ahh, family life. Wonderful in small medicinal doses. "Tell you what. How about you and Goober get cleaned up and I'll make something to eat?"

After a moment D'Argo shrugs, accepting the terms of her deal. "Come on, Punkin', Auntie Chi's making grolack." He smirks at Chiana while lifting the narl up onto his shoulders, apparently her customary seat.

"Grolack, huh? That narl better be spotless, then."

 

Everything in the kitchen is right where she remembers it. That has to be Aeryn's influence. Twenty cycles out of the Peacekeepers can't take the Peacekeeper completely out of the girl.

More surprising is the fully stocked larder. It throws her, the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables and then Chiana remembers Nerri as a teenager, rangy and ravenous, remembers that this is a family going about their lives, not fugitives on the run.

She pulls out the flour and water, the salt and spices and the hot oil, starts to mix the batter. Cooking has always felt like creation and she likes it - less commitment than a child, more useful too. You make it, you eat, sustenance and pleasure, immediate gratification. She still enjoys gratification, even now.

Catching site of a DRD in the corner, she shouts out to Pilot and can't fight back a grin when he responds instantly, gentle eyes blinking at her.

"We've missed you," he says, solemn and warm. They've all learned over the cycles to not hold back on love, to say it whenever possible, to never have a missed opportunity.

"Missed you guys too, Pilot. I'm... happy to be here."

"We're very pleased to have you back with us."

Pilot has the grace not to ask why she's there. She'll tell 'em all when Aeryn and Crichton return. Speaking of which...

"Where're the parents?"

"Due back tomorrow. They went planetside to celebrate their anniversary."

Chiana sniggered. "They went planetside to frell their brains out without being interrupted by their narls?"

Pilot made a noncommittal noise. "Things have been somewhat...frantic as of late."

"But you guys have been okay, right?"

She heats the burner, places the pan with oil on it and waits.

"Yes. We've been...okay."

"Com'ere!"

"Gooberchi?"

"Damnit, Punk, stop!"

The high pitched shriek cuts through the air like a knife. Chiana winces, and then starts to laugh. Punk is naked and shiny with water, streaking into the kitchen, Goober clutched tightly in her hand. She's wet, trailing puddles behind, trailing her brother behind her. She must have gotten a head start.

The little girl is giggling wildly, white puffs of soap still dripping off her curls. Chi steps around the corner of the stove, grabbing the slippery little girl and whipping her up under her arm. Punk squeals with utter, unabashed glee and flails the drannit around.

D'Argo skids to a stop. He's almost as wet as the little girl, and a hell of a lot less happy. He clutches a towel and sports an angry red shiner.

Chiana looks at him, trying to stifle her grin.

"I slipped in the water," he offers. "And she's so frelling fast."

Punk stretches her arms out in front of her like she's getting ready to take off, and Chi spins around in a circle. She remembers airplane, a dizzy, giggling little boy, enough laughter to counter the grief, the fear of the future that they'd all clung to for cycles. But Punk is squirmy and slippery in her joy and Chi hefts her over to D'Argo who swaddles her in the toweling, arms tight to her small body.

"You are gigantic pain the ass," he says to her.

"Ath."

"Yup, ass."

"Ath, ath, ath, aaaath." It sort of almost translates. And it's a far worse word in Sebacean.

Chiana gives in to her laughter, feeling like a teenager again. "Your mother's gonna be thrilled."

 

"You gonna eat that?" sounds pretty much the same in Sebacean as it used to in Nebari when she first started out with Nerri.

D'Argo goes a little slower with the second plate, enough so that Chiana can see that he isn't really inhaling the food. She still doubts that he's either chewing or tasting it, and she wonders at his ability to compartmentalize his mouth, to eat and speak clearly at the same time.

His sister on the other hand, picks each single tekti between her finger and thumb and inspects it before putting it into her mouth, or elsewhere.

Without a pause in his chewing, D'Argo reaches over to pinch the girl's nose, squishing the soft tekti on its way up her left nostril. He wipes the mash from her lip as she bangs out her frustration. "Peace, what did Mommy say about nose-peas?"

"Do it myself!"

"Only if you put 'em in your mouth."

Chiana watches them, feeling the sorrow swell and ease down again. So much hope in a name like that, with so many ghosts around them. She's glad they didn't name the child after another dead friend. "So this girl, she's at the telacademy?"

"She was. Now she's in the residential program."

"The one you just got into."

D'Argo's brow furrows, darkening the pale grey of his eyes. "Doesn't matter."

Peace tweaks another tekti between delicate digits and offers it to her brother.

"Sure it matters."

D'Argo shrugs, takes the tekti and tucks it under his plate. Peace repeats the process.

"Mom said no. So it's no. Arguing with her is like banging your head against the side of the prowler, painful and pointless."

"That's a direct translation from your dad."

He grins, the expression quirking his mouth, lighting up his eyes. She's willing to bet that girl at the telacademy has whole volumes in her head devoted to that smile.

"Without the swearing, yeah."

"And he agrees. That you shouldn't go?"

He looks back down at his plate, the outer edges of which are now surrounded by bits of tekti. "In your mouth, Peace. Gimme a break here, kid."

He bites his lower lip. "He's um, not up for arguing with her about this. She..." he tilts his head at the little girl. "A lotta arguments stopped around the time she was born. Before then, we'd been talking about it, planning out when I'd be old enough, how much time it'd take to convince Mom that I could go away for awhile."

Chiana feels incredulous on the kid's behalf. But then, she'd run from her sires when she was younger than D'Argo is now. She wonders, briefly, what would have happened if there'd been anyone in her world besides Nerri who had loved her as much as Crichton and Aeryn love their children. If it would have made any difference in her choices.

"So you got in, and Aeryn said no, and there's a girl there you like, and you're just letting it go. Just like that."

Goddess help her, Aeryn really is going to kill her. The spark of pleasure and fear lights low in her belly. She's not ashamed to admit she's missed that feeling.

Peace is clearly through with her dinner. Instead of offering her brother bits of food, she's now dropping them on the floor, giggling when they bounce. The DRDs whir up behind her and she begins to drop the bits on to them, laughing when their pincers reach up to catch the falling food before it hits them.

"Yeah," D'Argo says, "That's how it is."

Chiana shovels the last forkful into her mouth, chewing and thinking. Peace yawns, head rocking backward with the vehemence of it. D'Argo pushes soggy remnants of grolack around his plate.

Anniversary, Pilot said. Chiana remembers the firefight, and she also recalls enough about Earth to know that the boy's day of birth is a big deal for Humans. She slaps the table, breaking him out of his glum study. "You need fun."

"Fun?"

She laughs and Peace giggles along with her. "You say that like you don't know what it means."

He sets his mouth. "I know what it means."

"You do, huh?" She leans over the table at him. "Ever had any?"

He looks angry as he blushes, inferring a narrower meaning than she'd meant.

Ah, dren, that too? What was it with virginal Crichton boys? Were they all saving it up for something? Or did his folks keep such a tight leash on the boy that he never had the opportunity to play?

There were cute young girls down on the planet below right now, at the game parks and the zipi-bars. There was the sweet genius Ikeni-something in the residential program, where a room probably waited for D'Argo just down the corridor.

And here he is, stuck with a hyper narl on his own anniversary, sixteen cycles to the day when he came squalling into this life in the middle of a firefight. His cheeks cooling, he shovels the last forkful of soggy grolack into his mouth.

She feels indignation on his namesake's behalf, and she makes a decision. No way was there going to be a young buck of a D'Argo alive in this universe who'd never had fun, who'd never wrestled and rolled with a girl or two, preferably at the same time. It was a crime against the Luxan's memory. She'd solve it right now if she wasn't "Auntie Chi".

"There's a big gap in your education that we're going to close, you and I." Chiana announces as she stands. "From now on, I'm gonna be your chaperone."

D'Argo crosses his arms. "Aren't chaperone's supposed to keep their charges from having fun?"

"That's the story." She walks around to his side and sets her hip against the table. "But you and I will know better, won't we?"

He looks up at her from under his brows, wary and hopeful. He's a hybrid creature of the boy she knew and the man he'll be, pent-up and uneasy. The only time she's ever felt a siring instinct is in relation to this boy, and what he needs right now is something she can give him whether his parents want it or not.

His world isn't big enough for him any more, but there's a whole universe out there waiting for him. He needs off of this ship so he can grow bigger, so he can stretch out and become that man she can see folded up inside.

"We'll even get you into the program, D'Argo. I've got a plan."

 

"This is a really bad idea."

He shoves diapers and small clothes, soft and sturdy, into his rucksack. Peace is sprawled on his bed, thumb in her mouth, hair ruffed and rumpled, sleeping like the dead.

"She'll be fine. We'll all be fine. And more important, we're going to have fun."

He shakes his head. He's got a change of underwear tucked into the top of the bag, a shaving kit and some scent that she took from Crichton's quarters. It smells masculine and warm, spiced, reminds her of the way men smell when they've been partaking in sun and honest exertion. A clean scent. "You're sure we can get back before they do?"

What sort of adolescent worries this much about getting into trouble? On the other hand, it hadn't taken much effort to convince him to go with her. He's straining against the bonds put on him by his parents. She figures they have their own rebellious streaks to blame for their son's attitude. "Absolutely. There's nothing to worry about."

He thrusts Goober at her.

"If she wakes up without it, she'll scream like an Interon having a really bad day."

Chiana gingerly takes the doll. She'd rather leave Peace here, tucked into her little playroom, guarded by DRDs, but both Pilot and D'Argo had nixed that idea. "She'll be good," D'Argo had added, picking up the little girl to take her away from the dinner table. Peace had wrapped her legs around his waist, nestled head on his shoulder and promptly fell asleep. "She likes to be around noise and people."

A man with a child would be a draw, but he was still a boy and she didn't want the girls scared away. "Well, she and I will get to know each other then."

D'Argo had looked dubious, but he'd also started packing.

He shoves a blanket, water, juice, dried cereal, crackers and a packet of mashed tekti into the bag, which now bulges like a wylar's belly. "If we're gonna go, we should go now."

Chiana grins at him and picks up the little girl. Peace scrunches her face, little hands digging at her eyes, but once her head settles in the crook of Chiana's neck, she drifts back off to sleep before they've made their way to the bay.

 

"Young adult, holiday." She tells the concierge at the structure where she's docked her ship.

"Species preference?"

"Sebacean friendly."

"Special requests?"

She looks to D'Argo, his sister riding on his hip and yammering in his ear. "Why's th' lady sparkly, D?"

"That's her skin, Punk. She's Delvian."

"Cannai be Delbian, too?"

"No, Punk, you and I are kinda Sebacean."

"Cannai be sparkly?"

"If you're good, maybe."

"Goober doesn't wanna be sparkly."

"That's a surprise."

"Goober's a boy n' boy's aren't sparkly."

"No?"

Peace turns solemn, fingers caressing Goober's remnant of hair. "You can be sparkly if you want, Dee. I say so."

"That's big of you, Punk."

Girl wakes up with her engines running. Chiana turns back to the concierge, "The only request is fun."

Now Peace is tucked into a cafe booth between Chiana and a garden wall, standing with her Goober clutched to her chest and her eyes wide. For now, she's content to stare rapturously at the crowded tables all around them, soak in the night atmosphere of the commerce city.

Across the table, D'Argo sips nervously from his straw and fiddles with the city map she got from the concierge, keyed for the interests of a young Sebacean looking for fun.

Chiana watches him play with his drink and knows that she'll have to be as gentle and sneaky with him as she will with his parents. Unlike Peace, he isn't soothed by noise and people. He looks ready to bolt. "What I figure is, we'll start off slow and build from there."

"What are we gonna do with Punk?"

Chiana reaches over and taps him on the forehead. "We're not here tonight to party; we're here to scheme. So pay attention."

He shifts up from his slouch a bit, unable to squelch all of his incipient grin.

"I'm your chaperone, right? And we're going to have a nice walk around town and maybe some dinner--"

"Dinner sounds good."

Chiana thought that it might. "After that we'll do something fun for Peace and then we'll go back up to Moya. We're here tonight to scout the place out, find the good spots for when we come back down without the narl."

 

It turns out that Peace should come with a leash, so after the second harrowing chase through the street crowd Chiana hires a chair and driver for a few arns and D'Argo scours the map for likely hot spots. He saves the best for last, embarrassed and frustrated when he mentions it, and Chiana could almost smack him for being so...so…

So frelling convinced that the situation is hopeless.

"So you're saying the telacademy is based here?"

"No, they aren't really based anywhere." He sketches gestures as he talks, his fully grown hands long in the fingers and square in the palms. "The Free Sebacean Telacademy is an education cooperative spread out through most of the breakaway colonies, allowing scattered populations and mobile people like us to combine and share their knowledge and res--"

"Yeah, yeah." Chiana urges him toward the point.

"The Academy also partners with merchants and institutions all over the place to provide equipment, materials, residential programs," D'Argo scratches the back of his neck, adding in a thwarted murmur, "social opportunities."

Chiana falls back against the bench with a hard sigh. "I've been busting my mivonks here talking about fun and you didn't think to mention this?"

He doesn't meet her eyes when he shrugs. For a moment Chiana just looks at him, holding tight to the back end of Peace as she leans out the side of the rickshaw.

He clings to the absence of hope, steeling himself against the disappointment he knows is there. Why bother? Well, if you don't bother, how can you ever get what you want? She wants to shake him but she doesn't bother.

"Dinner," she says, bridging the awkward moment with a pat on his knee, "Dinner, toy store, home. Sound like a plan?"

"Yeah, I guess."

The flimsy the map is printed on is biodegradable, and she sees that the sigils of the telacademy's local lounge are faded, the material soft from being under D'Argo's warm thumb for arns. She taps the middle of the map. "Pick a place and tell the driver. I'm hungry now, too."

 

The restaurant is in an open air courtyard strung with lights, tiny twinkling stars that prove irresistible to little fingers. Peace is surprisingly nimble, up on the table bouncing for the lights faster than Chiana pull her back. Fortunately the lights are too high for her to grab, and her brother hefts her up, slinging her under his arm. She giggles and kicks, reaching up.

"She likes the lights," he shrugs, apologizing to the waiter who's gazing at the dusty footprints on the table with something close to horror.

"Doesn't she ever stop?" Chi asks, empathizing with the waiter. For a number of reasons, they'd determined to stop with D'Argo, what kind of cave 'shrooms made 'em decide to have another kid?

"Nah, not so much. She's like on of those wind up toys, goes and goes and goes until she crashes out. There's no in-between with her."

His affection shines through as Peace settles into her chair, head tilted up to the lights. "Mom thinks she could be a pilot, that she's got the balance and the concentration."

The resentment there is slight, but acrid.

"So why this place?" She knows better than to let males wallow in their misery. The blush staining his cheeks gives her the answer. She's not surprised.

"Dormitories?"

"Um," he stammers, "across the street. Faculty stays in the hotel connected to this restaurant."

"You could call her while you're here."

It isn't the blame, but the way his mouth curves tells her that she hit upon the right thing. He shakes his head. "If we come back, maybe. But not tonight."

"Why not?"

He sets his mouth hard, pokes at the ice in his glass. "Because what's the point? If I get to see her tonight, and that's it? Why bother?"

She remembers the fatalism of adolescence, the utter hopelessness of the world around her. But in her world, the hopelessness had been real, not perceptions of unfairness. Still, that doesn't lessen his pain.

Chiana waves to the waiter. "Two raslaks--hot--and juice for the narl."

"Palma juice," D'Argo adds. "Without the seeds."

The raslak warms her from head to toe and D'Argo occupies Peace with a stylus and some flimsies. She mostly draws on the clear surface, adds her scribbled signature to the tablecloth.

The rickshaw driver gives them a weary wave when the spill back out of the restaurant and D'Argo stands still for a microt, gazing over the top of the conveyance towards the middle of the smoothshine building opposite, eyes lingering on the top level. He gets in beside Chiana and hooks his hand firmly to the waistband of Peace's jumper as the cart takes off at a steady clip.

 

"Unified theory?" she asks, "Isn't that a little... primitive?"

The toy store is filled with delicately shaped structures, castles and prisms and wagons, dolls of every species and smooth, colorful blocks with a multitude of alphabets. A fairy tale world for the half-motra set. Peace has put her hands on nearly everything, giddy with the colors and textures. She presses a series of buttons that cause a small globe to light up and spin, shooting out light and painting pictures on the wall to an eerie, mournful dirge.

"No, it's not the kind of stuff dad studied." He grins, cheeky, one upping his old man. "It's theory in a whole new league, stuff that relates to FTL and to cosmic theory, black holes, wormholes, tesseracts, that kind of thing."

She cocks her head. "You're kidding right."

"No it's so cool, the way space bends, the way our perceptions of the continuum have changed. The Pathfinder people have finally opened up about some of their findings."

She's speechless. How much have they told him? A glimmer of insight hits her and she rubs her eyes, tired suddenly. How much haven't they told him is the question.

"Or," he says, sly and sweet. " I could join up with the Breakaway Colonies, be a pilot."

"Playin' both of your folks against the middle?"

"No." His eyes cloud briefly and he shuffles the load of toys in the crook of his arm, bright jars of sparkly goop clashing with the grim expression that passes over his face. "Mom, she doesn't think I have the skills to be a combat pilot."

That must have hurt, Aeryn's brutal honesty barely tempered with her love. It must have felt like a betrayal. "What do you think?"

"I dunno, she's the expert, been training pilots for the past few cycles. Mostly I think she's just being a worrywart, and..."

"And being Aeryn?"

He nudges her again, shuffling and a little rambunctious. "Yeah," his eyes drop down, scanning quickly and the humor flees.

"Chi, where's Peace?"

 

They scour the floor they're on but can't find her, and D'Argo's taken on a dark-eyed pallor of guilt that makes Chiana even more nervous. "So she's not right here, this place has ten floors, she could have wandered up or down, we just keep looking is all."

"Up, she would have gone up." As soon as he speaks he's off toward the ramp to the next floor/age level.

The colors aren't so bright on this floor, and there are less patrons to slow them down. D'Argo and Chiana alternate their shouts of "Peace".

A distant wail of "Deeeeee!" sends both relief and fresh fear washing through Chiana, and she darts through the aisles just a step behind D'Argo at a dead run.

D'Argo shouts his sister's name as he sprints, and the responding "Dee!" is broken in the middle by sobbing breaths.

Chiana slams into him as he stops in a blink, grabbing his arm to keep from rebounding back onto her eema.

"I'm so glad you found her, sir."

She ducks from behind D'Argo and when she spots the store security guard her gaze has to travel a disturbing height to encounter the being's face. Zenetan clan tattoos like the shadows of hatch marks on rough hewn cheeks. Still. She whispers hard in D'Argo's ear, "Ma'am."

He flicks his eyes to her and then back to the guard. "Officer, where did you find her?"

Peace squirms ineffectually in the guard's iron grip, her face as blotched as her captor's, tear-streaked and rosy-pink. "Chi! Chi-momma! Deee!" She drops her Goober as she stretches down toward her brother, but there are two other guards now and Chiana hooks her fingers in D'Argo's waistband like she did with Peace, keeping him from doing anything stupid.

"We were worried sick about her," Chiana steps forward, sidling into the main guard's personal space and craning her neck upwards in supplication. The guard's belt buckle is at the normal height for a door-knocker, but bigger. "Thanks to you, she's safe and sound; how can we repay your kind assistance?"

Chiana was willing to offer anything at this point to get both of her charges back to the ship and off-planet again; despite a rough few monens she's flush with cash. As for anything else she could offer, well, it wouldn't be the first time even if it was the first time in ages.

The security guard stands there, oblivious to the kicking squirming narl in her arms (at least, Chi's operating under the assumption of female; Zenetan males are her size and weedy), studying Chiana as if weighing her offer. "You don't look like this child's sire."

D'Argo pulls her back a step. "She's not; she's a family friend."

"So are you this child's sire?" One of the other guards is Sebacean, and he snickers.

"I'm her brother."

"Ident papers?"

D'Argo's ears turn an interesting shade of maroon, highlighting the velvet hairs that line the outer curve of shell. "Not with me."

"I see." The guard glances to her assistants with a sigh. Chiana gets the feeling they could have worked something out if there hadn't been witnesses. "Then we shall have to verify your claim by genetic assay before we can release the child to your custody."

With that, the guard turns and leaves the showroom floor. The two assistants each take Chi and D'Argo in hand and march them behind the boss.

Peace's shoe is untied, and when she can't turn around to see D'Argo she starts kicking the guard again, sending the shoe flying back into Chi's hasty catch.

"I'm in deep fucking dren, Auntie Chi."

She whispers back, "There something 'bout Punk I don't know?"

"No, she's my sister. And being my sister I know she's gonna spill the whole story to the folks when we get back."

"Don't worry about that part, okay? We'll spring her free, pay for our haul of goodies and be home on Moya in less than an arn. It's all in how you play it afterward, trust me."

The toy emporium was a tony operation through and through, and Chiana isn't surprised to see that their set-up for lost child verification is posh as well, a small cozy room tucked between the restrooms and the management office. Even the straps on the little narl chair for Peace are padded with the same plush fabric as the rest of the furniture.

"Deee?"

Chiana is glad to see that the girl isn't crying anymore; as long as she can see D'Argo, she seems cool with whatever happens. He's set into a chair just out of reach of Peace, and his guard lays out the boy's forearm along the thick padded arm of the chair.

The large guard doesn't strap Peace in, she sits on the desk with the girl tucked tight into her arms instead. Probably safer than trying to wrestle a wily narl.

Chi's pushed into a seat and her guard pulls a piece of tech out of the desk, punching buttons on the face of it as he strolls back to D'Argo. So far, so good, it has the feeling of routine.

"Gooberchi?"

Chiana slowly stands, offering the ragged drannit toy to the girl without rousing any of the guards. "Here you go, Peace."

D'Argo rolls up the sleeve of his shirt, and Chiana realizes that the sigils on the front are for the Free Sebacean Telacademy.

"Make'em sparkly?" Her eyelashes are still wet with tears but she's accepted the presence of the guard with an uneasy smile.

"Yeah, we got the make'em sparkly stuff, too."

D'Argo lets out a small hiss as the guard takes a sample from his arm.

"Chi, make'a lady sparkly?"

Chiana offers an embarrassed smile to the guard. At least the kid didn't call her a guy like her brother did. "I don't think it's part of her uniform."

The Sebacean guard is surprisingly gentle when he grasps Peace's arm and straightens it out, setting the narrow end of the component on her little bicep. He even shields her face from the sight, and maybe for some narls that would have worked, but Peace has pilot reflexes in that tiny seed of a body.

And Peace is a biter.

So now half the Crichton-Sun clan is in quarantine.

"If you have a suggestion, now would be the time."

His eye is swollen and his lip cut and bruised. He'd still had a lingering red mark on the outside of that eye from bathtime earlier in the evening, and now it's compounded into a hard dark knot curving around the socket. If nothing else, it's possible that Aeryn will have some sympathy for the beating her son just took. Although, it was more of a whack, thud, drop and it was definitely not personal.

Peace bit, the guard jumped, Peace screamed and D'Argo acted. And that's all she wrote.

"Don't get snippy with me. I'm not the one who tried to hit a Zenetan 14 times my size."

Actually, she's sort of proud of him. He rushed the guard with a nice mix of hubris, skill and dumb-ass panic, and he's been more worried about Peace than the cuts and bruises.

"They really won't release her to you?"

Chi shakes her, head, mind working, looking for an out coming up short. "They'll only release her to her official guardian, and kid, that ain't you. They know it's not me and they're not real thrilled that they can't fully ID your genes, even if they seem to match Punk's. I think they're afraid she gave them some sort of plague."

He rubs his uninjured eye with the heel of his hand. "We could break her out."

She considers the possibility. A small girl, uninterested guards, an easy lock.

"We have to break you out first."

"I thought you said this would be easy. Dinner, toy store, home."

Chi doesn't bother to respond to the petulance.

"No one's hurt, you're just in jail. Your parents aren't actually going to kill you, you know."

He snorted. "We either stay in here, and have Pilot call them, or we escape. If Pilot has to interrupt them, my dad'll be pissed and my Mom..." He swallows heavily. "She'll be more than pissed. Peace was my responsibility."

Duty weighs heavily on his young shoulders. Aeryn's influence maybe, or his own sensibilities, it hardly matters. He's stuck riding herd on the tiny terror, and he clearly loves the little girl. She wants to rail against his folks, demand that they cut him some slack, but she's been the little sister. And she's been left behind.

"All right. Jail break it is. Give me your shirt."

"My what?" He clutches the hem of it, dark blue with grey sigils of the Free Sebacean Telacademy on the front and

Suncrichton  
Diving Hynerians  
Intramural

on the back.

"Your shirt, hurry up."

"What do you need my shirt for?" Chiana can't tell if it's more petulance or the handicap of speaking around the swollen cut on his upper lip.

"Nothing." Well, nothing here. Later on it might serve as a, what did Crichton used to say? Free get out of jail chip. "Right now they only have a Luxan name and some weird DNA; what if they decide to look up the names on your shirt?"

He whips off the shirt and hands it to her through the meal-slot of the door. His blush travels down past his collarbones, highlighting the weedy patch of short hair that starts in the middle of his chest and travels lazily downwards in a trail toward his navel, matching the pair of tufts under his arms.

The musculature is lanky, but it seems that even watered down with Sebacean, Humans can never really escape the fur of their past. Here's hoping Ikeni likes an exotic flair and a little bruising. He folds his arms tight and looks ready to shiver.

Chiana passes him his jacket through the meal-slot, tucking his shirt under her own coat. "I'm supposed to be contacting your guardians to pick you up, but I'll be back for you both in a few arns; be ready."

"They hired a nanny for Peace in her cell, how are we gonna deal with that?"

"You know how much a nanny makes? That'll be easier than the piece of dren lock on the door."

"As long as Punk doesn't get hurt." He shrugs the jacket on but she interrupts him.

"Hey--keep it open, okay?" She answers his puzzled look with, "It's part of the plan."

He shrugs again and lets the jacket hang unfastened.

"Good kid." She winks. "I'll be back."

Out in the street she pulls the ragged map out of her pocket and heads for the dorms. She needs a geek. Ikeni...Kenai, that was it. If she's so smart, let's see how she fares at a jailbreak.

Chiana never thought she'd reminisce about the Gammak Base--though Peace as Stark does make a certain sense--and she wonders if D'Argo even knows about the kind of things his parents pulled before they took up teaching physics and flight.

Learn by doing, that's what Chi believes in. Maybe she'll take a position at the telacademy, teach the Fundamentals of Covert Ops and Snurching.

 

The girl is blond, well blondish, sunny colored hair shot through with an acidic red. She's pretty, well not exactly. She's very focused looking, silvery eyes and freckles. Chi slides her gaze up and down the girl. Kenai doesn't flinch, hand grasping the doorway.

"You're Nebari," she says finally.

"Huh, they said you were smart." Chi slips in to the room.

"What... you can't come in here... you can't do..." the girl stops talking. Chiana already has.

"We have a friend in common," she says. The girl's eyes spark. Good.

"And who would that be?"

Chi takes the shirt out from beneath her coat, and shows Ikeni the logo.

She licks her top lip, swallows a little. "Oh." Her chin tilts. "So, what's your point?"

"I want you to help me break him out of jail."

The girl's silvery eyes go dark and her freckles pale down to a dusky beige. "He's in jail?"

"Sort of."

"Here?"

Chi tilts her chin.

"He was here and he didn't call me, didn't leave a message or..."

"Maybe you wanna deal with all of that later."

The girl switches tracks of thought abruptly. "Why are you here? Where are his parents?"

"You want to spend more time with D'Argo, ever, it's best his parents don't know about this."

She bites her lip again, eyes shrewd. "You have a plan?"

"Yeah."

"You're sure this'll work?"

The girl tosses her hair. "Of course. It's a simple program. Finds the code, sweeps the code, opens the doors. A child could have written it."

Chi is tempted to try it out on a passing door, but the goods advertised on the revolving holo are expensive and it likely has an alarm. The toy store lockdown is hardly sophisticated. She's not worried about klaxons there.

Ikeni tugs at the neck of her tight black sweater. She's more conspicuous in the dark clothing than she would be in ordinary garments, but she'll act as a distraction while Chi pops the locks and wipes their computer. It wouldn't do to leave any evidence behind. Being quarantined by merchants isn't that big a deal, but even now, cycles after the treaties, certain people still had a hard-on for the Crichton/Sun clan. Despite her desire to see her godchild happy and healthy and raising hezmana, she knew there were legitimate reasons for his parents' caution.

And besides, a little petty crime might be good for all of them. You never really forgot your first jail break.

This Ikeni girl is a geek with a pack full of hardware, much of it of her own craft. In the vestibule of the alleyway employee entrance, she pulls out a doctored pair of sunglasses with a jewel optic epoxied onto each lens.

Chiana whispers into her ear, "What's that for?"

"Subsurface scan so I can find the right spot. I want to disable the lock without triggering any alarms and for that I need--"

"The exact location of the lock module." Chiana presses a fingertip on the wall a few feet away from the doorjamb. "Right here."

Ikeni pushes the bug-eyed optics up into her hair and does a subsurface scan of Chiana, her bare eyes colorless in the dim. "Who are you again?"

"Family friend. Now, you got the goods or no?"

She shifts the pack forward and pulls out a hand-soldered circuit board glued to a common handheld encyclopedia. She squints in the dark and works the keypad.

"You could turn the screen light on."

"Diverted it to power the code transmitter."

"Oh." With that the door slides open. Chiana shoves a piece of permacrete into the gap and pulls Ikeni inside.

"I was going to code in a temporary password for when we leave--"

"Save it for the security files, gadget-girl. Come on, they're on the fifth floor."

"They? I thought we were just getting D'Argo out so he wouldn't be dismissed for hazing--"

"Hazing, huh?" Chiana stops and smiles at the girl as she shrugs like she's got an itch in her spine.

"There was...something I *heard* about a few monens back...a little oogie-scoogie that's all."

"Oogie-scoogie?"

"Rearranging all the dean's furniture while he was out at some dinner meeting."

Chiana imagines some crusty academic barking his shins in the dark. It's cute and she warms a bit more to toward this nondescript little blonde. "Lemme guess; when you first got into the program?"

Ikeni nods, an acid pink lock of hair working loose from under her bug-goggles. She's so pale her freckles look like spattered mud in the dark.

"Yeah." Screw the education; D'Argo needs to hang out with these kids, period. Chiana pulls her forward again. "Come on, the tier ramps are this way."

 

Getting in is easy. But then, getting in is always easy. It's getting out that's a bitch.

Ikeni is a little jittery, fingers searching out her gadgets, touching on them for momentary comfort.

The key here is to get through the security system without being spotted and to break out the prisoners without sounding the alarm. A normal jailbreak takes finesse and firepower, this is all about the quiet skills. Criminals are one thing, commerce quite another. Jails have rules for how you can treat the prisoners, and it would only take one swipe of her genetic scan to bring up her record. She'd never get out. Chiana smiles. She hasn't had this sort of rush in cycles. The fear of getting caught instead of getting dead. It's the good kind of fear, the kind that makes you want to seek out a partner and celebrate both states of being.

"So if it's not for the hazing or..."

Chi nudges her in the ribs. "Does it matter?"

Ikeni bites her lip, worrying at her glasses.

God, the kid couldn't have found anyone more different from Aeryn if he'd tried. And he'd die if he knew what a thing his dad used to have for geeky blonds. Then again, he could have gotten that preference for pale and brainy from his mom. She giggles to herself. This is family she thinks, this is what we pass on.

"You're gonna use these toys to get us into the security office so I can turn off the alarms then set 'em again so that no one knows they were ever off. I think we'd better break D'Argo out first, no telling what Punk'll think of the whole thing."

"His sister's a prisoner too?"

Chiana snorts. "More Guests of the Establishment."

Ikeni wrinkles her nose in confusion. "We don't want his dad to find out, right?"

"Oh, yeah..."

She doesn't balk and they make their way to the second level. Ikeni scans the walls. "This is where the sensors are."

"Okay, kid. Just tell me where not to step."

Slip and slide, a little hope, a little bend and while Ikeni isn't as flexible as Chiana, she's game for the adventure. When they reach the other side of the big showroom, she lets out a breathy giggle.

"Think there's a way to set those on a timer so they turn back on after we're gone?"

The girl shrugs. "Shouldn't be too hard, just reroute the feed for a few 100 microts. Depends on their system though. A place like this should be pretty sophisticated."

"But you can handle it?"

"Yeah. I helped my older sister break into her boyfriend's...well, let’s just say if I can do that, a toy store security system won't be that hard."

The office is at the top of the stairs. A light is on and Chi can spot two big Interons lounging at their desks. Perfect. Interons are easy marks.

"I'm going to distract those two while you go in. You need to reset the alarms, and wipe Peace and D'Argo's security files."

The girl raises a pale eyebrow. "Why? Who cares if there's a record of them."

She's young, and maybe she's never heard the stories, maybe never made the connections. That's cool, that's good. Gives D'Argo a chance at a normal life, legacy free.

"Standard procedure, gadget girl. Never leave information behind if you can help it."

"And you're a friend of the family?" Her voice was shrill again, too smart not to question, but young enough that the worry was nearly overcome by the illicit thrill.

"Oldest friend. I'm his fairy godmother."

"It's just...if I get caught...they tend to be pretty harsh on people who mess with the security files. It's a far bigger deal than the alarms. No one could prove we did that."

"So you won't get caught. Trust me, we won't let it happen."

The girl takes a deep breath. "Okay."

The Interons are not a challenge. They believe her story about hearing an intruder in the main body of the showroom floor, swayed by her cool grey cleavage and their own sense of intellectual superiority. They don't even ask how she got back into the building. Of course, she doesn't bother to tell them that she ever left.

"No need to bother with Lozan," the darker haired one says, jostling his counterpart. "He's on break. We can check it out, you just go back and sit with your nephew."

She smiles, licks her lip and the redhead grins back, toothy and pleased, his hair deepening. She walks slowly, hips swaying and waits for their footsteps to sound in the hallway before gesturing Ikeni into the office.

D'Argo is lying on his back on the cot, staring at the ceiling. He jumps up when he sees her, and she puts her finger to her lips.

She uses Ikeni's little toy and the lock snicks open.

He's smart enough to steal out after her.

They have to climb a small staircase to get to the room where Peace is being held.

The nanny opens the door on the first knock, standing in the doorway blocking the entrance. She sparks in the low light, glitter covering her broad flat face. Apparently, Peace has made a convert.

"Are your parents here?" Her voice is low, deep and serious.

D'Argo bounces on his toes, trying to see around her.

"They're not coming." Chiana says. The nanny narrows her eyes. Chi pulls a soft grey pouch out of her bodice. "Seerjat crystals. Highest quality."

A shriek sounds from behind the nanny, followed by a flurry of tiny footsteps. "Deeeeeee!"

The nanny winces. "Highest quality, huh?"

Chiana nods.

"Don't suppose one of you'd be willing to knock me out? So I don't get blamed."

Chiana accepts the terms with a slow and flirty blink. "Of course."

The nanny steps aside as Peace barrels out the door and right into D'Argo's grip. He hoists her into the air and holds her up, examining her.

"Dude, what happened to your clothes?"

"She spilled her milk," the nanny gestures with the uncapped marker in her hand, one of the many colors scribbled on Peace's outfit and bare skin. "And when I turned back she'd already started on her legs and..."

"Deeee!" D'Argo stops listening. Peace wraps her graffitied arms around his neck, voice shrill and scared. "Dee! Why you leave me?" Her small chin trembles, her verbal skills in rags and her sunny grin missing in action. Dried tears cake her face, matched now by fresh ones tracking through the glitter.

"Oh Punk, it's okay, baby. I'm here now."

The nanny's eyes widen and Chi rolls her eyes. The woman turns. Chiana hits her on the back of the head, stepping neatly away as she thuds to the ground.

Peace snuffles into her brother's hair, a death grip on his jacket. "Goober?"

Chiana spots the drannit and an opened jar of glittery goop. She scoops them both up. "Come on."

They barrel down the stairs, trying to keep quiet. Peace must have sensed the urgency because she's quiet and still in D'Argo's arms. Sliding around the corner into the security station, he stops short as he spots Ikeni lounging against the wall.

"We've got 200 microts," she says, eyes sliding down to the ground, not really meeting his. "When, uh, we start for the door."

"Files?" Chiana doesn't want to break up the reunion, but first things first.

"Gone."

"Good."

D'Argo finally finds his voice, scratchy and unsure. "Um, hey."

"Hey," she gives him a little half smile, nervous still. "You, uh, okay?"

"Yeah, just a little bruised. What're you..." Peace squirms, and he automatically turns her so she can see what's going on. She stares at Ikeni, scrubbing sparkly snot across her cheek as she ponders the new face.

"She," Ikeni gestures to Chiana, "thought I could, maybe, um, help."

"That's cool, that's um...god, thank you. Oh--this is um, my sister."

"Hey," she says to the narl.

D'Argo uses the sleeve of his coat to wipe off Peace's face.

"Wanna be sparkly?" Peace asks, voice small, still warbling a little.

"Maybe later," the girl says, still not meeting D'Argo's eye.

"Press the frelling button," Chiana says. "Let's take this party elsewhere."

Ikeni hits the button and they all bolt, tearing through the darkened toy store, hell-bent for the exit.

They're a motra from the door when Peace lets out a wail. "Toy for Goober!"

They screech to a stop, D'Argo sliding into Ikeni. She grabs his forearm in the dark to steady herself and Chiana doesn't need light to see the blush stain his cheeks.

"No, Punk. No time."

"Toy!!!"

"No!" D'Argo hisses, trying to keep his cool in front of the girl, but clearly fraying at the edges.

"Yes! I say so! Toooooy!"

The narl's had a hell of a night, and it's either find a buddy for Goober or bring the hapless, but armed Interons down on them.

Chiana growls, "Just grab something."

"But that's stealing!"

How the frell did these kids survive anything?

"We'll send 'em some credits! Just grab something."

Ikeni ducks into the corner of the store, grabs a plastic Ceniflau and hisses, "Go, go!!"

They hit the door with microts to spare, but are only half a block away when the klaxons sound like a war raid.

They keep running, heading towards the east side of the town where the residences are.

 

Chiana buys them all frozen eeka berries, which Peace proceeds to add to the fabulous collection of stuff stuck to her face. Her hand prints dot D'Argo's shoulders and neck, but he keeps her in his arms, walking aimlessly next to Ikeni. They're having the sort of half-formed conversation that signals deep interest and an equally deep embarrassment over that interest.

It's so...nice. These two adolescents, bright and shiny with their youth, with their freedom and intelligence, the way they can spark off each other's smiles and conversation.

"So, um, your parents still won't let you come to the residential program." Ikeni's voice is steady, hinting at her interest but masking it in an ordinary question.

D'Argo sighs. "No. They say it's too dangerous."

Ikeni laughs, and D'Argo joins in. It seems absurd to them, what kind of danger can school offer up? Missed tests? Bad food? An infraction for some cheerful misbehavior?

Chi won't bother to correct them; she's weirdly charmed by their innocence and suddenly feels very old.

They stop about a block away from the dorms, and D'Argo hands a wide-eyed Peace to Chiana. She cuddles the girl close, enjoying her child scent mixed with the bite of eeka berry. She wanders a little down the street and they looking through the dimly-lit window of a closed cafe, Peace at the pastries on display, Chiana at the reflection of the two behind her.

She is the chaperone, after all.

"I, uh, thanks, Ikeni," he pauses after he says her name, swallowing for a moment. "Thanks so much for helping."

She smiles and her face lights up, giving Chiana a little insight into what must have first drawn D'Argo to her. "It's okay. I, uh, I was happy to help."

He looks at the ground, biting his lip. "I don't know... I mean, we're leaving and I can't come to the program and I don't think I'll see you..." He tugs at his hair. "Frell it. Fuck. It's so unfair."

She gives him sly grin and takes the hem of her black sweater, yanks it up. D'Argo's eyes go wide and he gasps, then starts to giggle.

She's got his shirt on. 'Diving Hynerians' indeed. Chiana wonders how many different smiles this girl has, and what else she's got under wraps.

"You're gonna have to come back to get this," she says, laughing low and full. D'Argo's smile widens, that full Crichton grin and when she drops her sweater back into place he steps forward, sweeps his mouth over hers and steps back.

They stand there, staring for a microt and then Chiana's comm breaks through the haze.

"Pilot, what's up?"

"I thought you should know that Crichton just commed to check in on his offspring."

Frell. "And?"

"I'd...hurry back if I were you?"

She doesn't bother to sign off. D'Argo's eyes are saucer wide. She thrusts Peace into his arms and they take off towards the dock.

 

D'Argo flies backward into Chiana with a hoarse scream, and for a microt Chiana thinks a bomb exploded on her ship. When she sees John standing in the doorway she nearly collapses with relief.

"Chi, it's good to see you again." His smile fades and he spends a moment studying his son, who's panting and clinging just as hard to Peace as she is to him. "Pilot said you were down here, so I thought I'd say hi."

D'Argo can't seem to speak and Chiana would rather he didn't even try until she laid some groundwork. "We were just doing some sight-seeing, catching up on things."

Peace sights John and pipes, "Daddy! We came from the toy store!"

"Toy store, huh?" He cups the narl's head with his hand and Chi can tell he's cataloging his son's cuts and bruises and his daughter's colored outfit.

"Got make'em sparkly."

Chiana fishes in the tote just inside her ship, pulling out the canister of sparkled goop and one of the new plastic beasties. "I couldn't see keeping 'em cooped up on the ship."

John looks from the tote already on the ship to the group who've obviously just arrived. "Hitting all the toy stores in town, then?"

"Got carried away shopping."

He reaches out to D'Argo slowly, as if to a skittish animal, and runs a finger from the hard bruise around his eye to the split on his lip. D'Argo shakes his head back, his voice cracked but thankfully not squeaky. "Gave Punk a bath before we came down."

"Chi, why don't you get Peace tucked into her crash-webbing while I have a chat with my son, here?" John pulls the narl from her brother and says goodbye and goodnight, bestowing almost as many kisses on Goober as the girl herself.

Chi boards her ship and sets down in the pilot seat, activating the external viewer and routing sound to an earpiece. Punk sits astride one thigh, playing with the buckles of the crash webbing.

"Nice shiner."

"Yeah, well, she's got tiny elbows and pilot reflexes; I'm lucky I still have an eye."

John rubs the spot between his eyebrows as he takes a deep breath. "I left your mom in the bathtub, so let me make this quick."

D'Argo offers the customary shudder at the image and then waits for his father to speak.

Instead, John grabs a handful of his son's shirt collar and slams him hard up against the side of Chiana's ship. D'Argo gets an Aeryn look in his eye and Chi thinks that maybe he's thinking bout the Zenetan guard and he's not ready to capitulate twice in the same night.

John stares the challenge down. Then he leans his face right into D'Argo's and speaks softly, each word like a thin metal plate being hammered into place. Chi boosts the pickup on the mic to catch it.

"If I ever find out what really happened tonight that will mean two things: you not only fucked up whatever little adventure you had, you'll also have to leave the program."

"The prog--" D'Argo stops short as realization hits.

"It has taken me three days to convince your mother to take this chance on you--don't get me wrong, most of it was fun, but it's been a siege to get her to change her mind about this. If anything," he bumps D'Argo against the hull for emphasis, "*anything* happens to you on my watch, down here where I'd convinced her you'd be safe, *she will kill me*."

John lets go and D'Argo drops a few denches to the ground. The next words are thick and deep, barely registering on the mic, but it's clear the boy hears them by the way he swallows. "And so help me I'd let her."

John straightens. "Am I understood, son?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good kid." John pulls the boy into a rough hug, thumping his back and laying a surreptitious kiss on the boy's dark hair. "Happy birthday and you're welcome. Go straight home, now, okay? Tell Chi I want to see her."

Chi flicks the display off and pockets the earpiece, shifting Punk into a passenger seat as her brother boards. His face is pale and sweaty as he secures Peace into her crash webbing, but the beginnings of a dumbfounded grin can be seen as he mutters to himself, "Crazy bastard."

She figures he must have been awfully sheltered not to have already known this about his dad. When she strolls down the ramp the crazy bastard's composed himself again as if nothing really *had* happened. He winks at her and she laughs.

Aeryn would kill both of them if she knew.

"Gonna stay with us awhile this time?" John's a little softer around the eyes, and his hair has enough grey to lighten the color. He's still in leathers but the coat is a different cut, more fabric in the style and lined with a dark blue that almost matches his shirt.

"Yeah, for a while." She finds she can't return his sly smile, and the words that she hasn't been able to say until now fall free as she meets his gaze. "Nerri's dead. For real this time."

He cradles her neck and tips his forehead down to touch hers. "I'm sorry, Chi."

"S'okay." She lays her hand over his and pushes the tears back. She hadn't thought much about Nerri since she docked on Moya, and this brings a special kind of ache even though it was the reason she'd come.

 

She thinks of the little sister aboard her ship. "I see you've been busy. I thought you guys wouldn't have tried again since, you know, with Aeryn."

"Peace." His chuckle is wry as he leans companionably against her under the purple white light of the docking platform. "She wasn't planned, no. When Aeryn found out I tried to convince her...that's a whole other story in itself, though. She came out fine, both of them, but it was a risk I hated taking."

She elbows him. "Big happy family."

"Who'd a thought, huh?" His thumb rubs the top of her hand. "Listen, I'm supposed to be on a fellip-run. You'll be on Moya when we get back, though, right?"

"I'm staying for a while this time."

"Good. You'll notice how I'm not asking you what happened."

"I noticed."

"I think it's better if I don't know." He sounds like he's trying to convince himself, and he gives her a sharp look as a thought occurs to him. "Unless it's something I should know?"

Chiana gives him a prim Auntie look. "If it makes you feel any better, you're the only one here getting frelled tonight."

"Right," he nods as he turns to go, "good."

"And," she whispers as he walks toward the gate to the street, "it was the smoothest jailbreak I've ever seen."

He shouts without looking back, "I didn't hear that, Chi."

 

"Whatcha doin'?"

Aeryn turns her head at Chiana's question, gives her a smile that says a lot more about the years and miles and changes than anything on her body.

She still looks well-rested, well-frelled actually. She's still beautiful, hasn't really aged beyond the small lines around her eyes and a sharpness to her face. She sits like a soldier, back rigid, looking at the components laid out before her, surrounding a glossy black box.

"Things I think he might need. John's doing the same thing, although he thinks I don't know."

"You're making him a bomb?"

"Possibly." She lets the beat go by. "No, just… essentials."

Chiana stands close to Aeryn, looking over her shoulder. She leans in a little more, chin resting on her shoulder. Some things you can still take for granted.

"He's gonna be fine. Gonna have a great time and get into some trouble and get laid. It'll be great for him."

Aeryn picks up a coupler, places it in the bottom of the box.

"I know. I ..." She breathes out heavily, body sagging. "I can't believe I'm the one who wants to keep him home, but..."

Chi strokes her arm. "He's your son."

She picks up a box of chakkan oil cartridges, nestles them in next to the coupler. All they've had before at the program is a little oogie-scoogie; now their newest student will have his own arsenal. Hopefully Crichton's care package will have more snacks.

"You met the girl?"

"Mmm. Smart. Kind of cute. Definitely a tech. I'd include some birth control."

Aeryn holds up another packet, rattles it to the tune of a thick slushy sound.

"Vennika?"

"Works for humans and Sebaceans, in a pinch," she says, mouth curving up.

She holds up another box. "Prophylactics. John's contribution."

Chiana starts to laugh. "You're gonna deprive him of the embarrassment of going to the all-night pharmacy and buying things himself?"

Aeryn grins, sharp and fierce. "There're only five in here."

They both snicker, a conspiracy of women.

Chiana agrees. "Two days and he'll be out."

"Less than that," Aeryn says, "I'd guess."

"One really good day, possibly while skipping class."

"You sound like you want him to get into trouble."

"A little trouble is good for a boy. Or a girl."

Aeryn mouth draws flat and she sighs. "We've kept a lot of things from him. Maybe important things, I don't know." She seems to shake that off as she repacks the box. "We don't take as many chances as we used to around here." She taps her head gently against Chiana's, scooting the chin off her shoulder so she can stand. "Skills get rusty when you don't train them."

"It's not as big a risk as it feel like, you know? He's a smart kid. He needs this."

Aeryn leans back against the table and studies Chi a while before speaking. "I had him to make John happy. You knew that. And I loved him from the beginning, he was amazing. I finally saw why John wanted to have children in his life. But one day, when he was about five cycles old, I looked down at him..."

She crosses her arms and pauses, then settles into the story, decides to tell it. "He was talking to a DRD, crouched down at its level, and there was something about that small voice saying those big words, the way he was talking to that DRD as if it were his friend...he looked like a perfect little person, a little John with my smile and with everything wide open for him, no enemies or injuries...I realized that I would do anything at all to protect him, to keep him safe."

"Yeah, we all knew you would." Chiana smirks. "You can't help yourself with Crichton men."

Aeryn shakes her head, still sober. "If I had to, I would choose him over his father. Only if I had to. But I could make that choice. I'd risk anything to give either of my children whatever they need."

Chi thinks that it's easy to be lulled by the sheen of domestic calm, easy to forget the terrible choices they each had to make in the past.

"You're staying for awhile." Aeryn makes it a statement as well as a change of mood.

Chiana nods, so tired suddenly.

"Peace will be thrilled. When D'Argo leaves, she'll only have her father at her beck and call."

"That kid's something else. She's so lucky to have a brother like D. You guys did good."

Aeryn smiles, her pride rich and a little wicked. "She is indeed. She's going to be a pilot. She's going to be a terror, as well, I think, completely spoiled by her brother and father."

"It's good, you know," Chiana hesitates, thinks that if she's going to break down, Aeryn is the person to do it in front of. "Family."

"Nerri," Aeryn says softly. "I'm so sorry."

Chiana doesn't realize that she's been crying, wipes the tears off on her sleeve, throat hot and tight and ravaged. She can't believe he's really gone. It keeps hitting her, trying to stick. Then she'll suddenly think about him like she always used to do and it hits her one more time; never see him again.

Aeryn opens her arms, has learned a thing or two about comfort in the past cycles. Her mouth is a curve of compassion but there's nothing easy in her eyes. Chi leans into her, breathes in the clean, familiar scent of her.

"You're still too bony to hug."

She smears her face on Aeryn's t-shirt. "You should talk." She laughs, hiccups through the tears. Backs up before either of them can be embarrassed by the exchange.

"It's just...I know he died doing what he believed in. Hezmana, I believed in it too, but..."

"But he left you alone."

She nods. "It's just me now. Not even the thought of him. Just me."

Aeryn takes a deep breath. "It's not, you know. Family..." she looks around the bay, tilts her head at Chiana. "You know the rest. This is as much yours as ours. And you're always welcome."

Chi gives her a shaky smile. Family. Wonderful in small medicinal doses.

"Now help me finish putting this box together."

Chiana folds a soft black t-shirt and places it on top.

"But Chiana..."

She looks up, Aeryn's eyes keen and mere denches from her own.

"If you ever take it into your head to help my son have another adventure without my permission, I will personally kick your arse off this ship."

She doesn't reply, mouth quirked. She doesn't ask how Aeryn knows anything happened, she just adds her own sentiments to the box.


End file.
